“The Android operating system captured a record 80 percent share of all smartphones shipped worldwide in the second quarter of 2013,” Strategy Analytics’ Neil Mawston said in a statement. “Apple iOS reached 14 percent global smartphone share in the quarter, its lowest level since Q2 2010.”

That’s due to Android’s massive app store, which is now serving more downloads than Apple’s iOS app store, the many, many vendors who make and sell Android-based phones, and, most of all, the “competitive licensing costs” — in other words, free — that Google offers Android at.

Window Phone #2?

“Microsoft slotted into third position with 4 percent share, reaching its highest level in the global smartphone market for three years,” Mawston said.

That may not sound like much, but it is almost a third as much market share as Apple, which only a year ago seemed light years ahead of its old rival. Microsoft is making steady progress, Strategy Analytics says, but it’s still charging too high a license fee to hardware partners and is lagging in support for the latest high-end chipsets.

Sayonara, Apple

But at this point, it’s too late.

Android has captured the global smartphone market for the foreseeable future, and Apple has frittered away a massive lead in technology and user experience by keeping its nose in the air and refusing to do what it takes to satisfy more than a small slice of the market.

Which ultimately harms consumers, who don’t get a chance to experience iOS and Apple products at a price level they can afford, and harms Apple, which is still making money but, absent a miracle of the scope of iPhone’s original introduction, is quickly subsiding into yesterday’s story.